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Student & Alumni News
Student & newsAlumni
Less than a year after performing in the Dance Department gala at The Joyce Theater in New York City, Dance alumnus Nick Sciscione returned to The Joyce stage in March 2012 with the internationally renowned Stephen Petronio Dance Company. Sciscione was featured in two pieces: City of Twist and The Architecture of Loss. For Sciscione to be chosen to join such a distinguished company immediately upon graduation is only one of many indicators about the quality of our dance program. Sciscione also will be joining a new company being established by faculty member Randy James. Recent MFA alumna Martha Clippinger had her first solo exhibition at elizabeth harris gallery on 20th Street in New York City. And an auspicious debut it was: Our own John Yau reviewed the exhibit for the online journal of the arts Hyperallergic.com, stating that “Clippinger ’ s mostly small constructions are like exuberant bundles of energy that you would want to go to a dance party with, especially if you at all shy. Her work is friendly, outgoing and unapologetic about its inherent eccentricities. ” The same could be said of the artist herself. Bolstering Yau ’ s praise was a review in The Brooklyn Rail by Robert Berlind: “Here Clippinger ’ s intimacy, wit and insouciance bring to mind the work of Richard Tuttle. She responds to the orthodoxy of modernist abstraction by recasting it as everyday play with common materials. ” Gotta dance! Gotta dance! No doubt Gene Kelly ’ s mandate influenced Visual Arts BFA alumna Nicole McKeever to move to Ireland and earn a master ’ s degree in Irish dance performance at the University of Limerick.
SEAN SHANAHAN
Celebrating Yo-Yo Ma
On Dec. 4, 2011, Music alumna Cristina Pato, above at left, took the stage at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., to honor cellist Yo-Yo Ma in a performance televised later that month on CBS. The Galician bagpiper is a member of Ma ’ s renowned Silk Road Ensemble, featuring artists from around the globe. She has collaborated with Ma since 2006. Pato performed several selections with her Silk Road colleagues, along with James Taylor and Emanuel Ax, among others.
“To be backstage with Ravi Coltrane, Herbie Hancock or my friends from the Silk Road Ensemble was the most beautiful experience, ” Pato says, adding that she noted a true “ sense of community that was created around the honorees ” — Meryl Streep, Sonny Rollins, Neil Diamond and Barbara Cook, along with Ma.
“Yo-Yo Ma is a constant inspiration for me, ” Pato adds. “His humanity and generosity are always teaching me how to become a better human being. My life has changed since the day I started to work with him. ”
Visual Arts alumna Nicole McKeever performs with the famed Riverdance group. Riverdance ’ s U.S. tour ends in June 2012.
McKeever has been competing competitively in Irish dance at the world-championship level since she was 13. She is one of the lead dancers in the acclaimed Riverdance group. Recent BFA Theater graduate Justin Kruger was one of the leads in How the World Began, which recently played at the Peter Jay Shard Theater in New York City. New York Times critic Charles Isherwood singled out Kruger in his review: “And Mr. Kruger, a recent graduate from the acting program at Rutgers University, embodies Micah’ s troubled discomfort with an ease that impresses. Even very young actors can run into trouble playing adolescents, painting the usual insecurities and sensitivities of the genus in overly bold colors . . . Mr. Kruger ’ s sensitive performance allows us to see the damaged, even desperate young man under the stoic surface. ” Molly Price, a veteran of TV’ s Third Watch, appears in Mike Nichols ’ Broadway revival of the Arthur Miller classic Death of Salesman at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. The play stars
Leah Durner ' s painting was featured in the January 2012 issue of Town & Country magazine.
Philip Seymour Hoffman and runs through June 2, 2012. Leah Durner, MFA Visual Arts, found a novel way to have her work exhibited and widely seen outside the sometimes hermetic world of the New York City art scene. The January 2012 issue of Town & Country magazine featured a number of designer showcases for sophisticated home design. The Carrier and Company model apartment featured Durner ’ s work, noting that “her abstract paintings are the perfect, unfussy complement for brightly painted walls. ” Durner also has her work regularly exhibited in more conventional spaces, most recently in a oneperson show at 571 Projects in New York City. Durner is always careful to cite the education she received at Mason Gross, singling out professors Leon Golub, Martha Rosler and Geoffrey Hendricks in bios. —DB
Tony-winning Theater alum Roger Bart stopped by campus on Dec. 2, 2011, to conduct a high-spirited musical-theater master class with a group of BFA and MFA Theater students. Bart gave pointers about auditioning and shared his own experiences. MFA actor Michael Walker says Bart’ s counsel “to really approach [songs] as monologues first so that we understand the character ” was especially enlightening. In addition, Walker says he was intrigued to learn how Bart, who has found success on both stage and screen (The Producers; You ’ re a Good Man, Charlie Brown; Desperate Housewives), prepares for auditions. “He told us to always know who is in the room when you are about to audition and to IMDB/Google them, ” Walker says. “ . . . It’ s great to hear from [alums] how the professional world operates. ”
Overheard
OUR FAVORITE QUOTES, STRAIGHT FROM THE MOUTHS OF MASON GROSS STUDENTS, FACULTY, ALUMNI AND FRIENDS
“This career is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. There is no such thing as a big break. It just is consistently doing good, quality work, and then the work will come to you. No matter what happens, you have to fight and not let anyone tell you what you can and cannot do.
– Actor and Mason Gross Theater alum
Adam Mucci
formerly Dep. Halloran on HBO’ s Golden ” Globe-winning Boardwalk Empire, giving advice to students at his high school alma mater, Hasbrouck Heights High School. Mucci is set to appear in Men in Black III in May 2012.
Tony-winning alum Roger Bart stopped by campus on Dec. 2, 2011, to conduct a high-spirited master class with a mix of BFA and MFA Theater students.
Yvonne Almeria Campbell, actor
THEATER ALUMNA, MASON GROSS SCHOOL OF THE ARTS
I arrived at the Mason Gross School of the Arts as an unpolished artist. The school gave me the tools I needed to perfect my craft. My classmates and I spent countless hours doing the Meisner Technique, learning to be present and expanding our creativity. As a student I looked to other alumni—Calista Flockhart, Kristin Davis, Avery Brooks—who walked the halls of Mason Gross. These actors were trained just as I was, and it was encouraging to see their success.
When I graduated from Mason Gross, I wanted to give back to the students who would follow in my footsteps—artists following their hearts. I support scholarships to help students realize their dreams. I believe each of us should reach out to help those pursuing their passion. It is more critical than ever to give back, especially in this difficult economy, when arts funding is being severely cut across the country.
I ask you to join me in supporting the Mason Gross School of the Arts. Your gift can help forward Mason Gross ’ mission to train working artists.
LAURA ROSE PHOTOGRAPHY
Give to the Mason Gross Annual Fund
To make a gift to the Mason Gross School of the Arts, please contact the Office of Development at 848-932-5237, or use the enclosed envelope to mail your donation to the Office of Development, Mason Gross School of the Arts, 33 Livingston Ave., New Brunswick, NJ 08901. Please make checks payable to the Rutgers University Foundation.
CROSSING BORDERS
Students wrap up year-long focus on Israeli dance
LARRY LEVANTI
Arguably, not much will lure the average college student back from winter break two weeks early. Most students would balk at the idea of plunging into 80 hours of rigorous physical activity back at school while friends snooze till noon and catch up on episodes of Dexter.
Nevertheless, 18 Mason Gross BFA Dance students spent the first half of January engaged in an international exchange with the renowned Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollak Dance Company. Later in the month, dancers trained for three days alongside Pinto, co-founder of the experimental Israeli dancetheater group. The intensive wrapped up the Dance Department’ s year- long focus on Israeli dance, which has included collaborations with Batsheva Dance Company and Vertigo.
“Israel has an incredible dance scene— incredible dance energy, ” says Julia Ritter, chair of the Dance Department. “It is a laboratory of experimentation. I wanted students to be pushing themselves with [Pinto and Pollak’ s] challenging movement but also delve into the theatricality. ” The company employs several actors as well as dancers.
Dance professor Jeff Friedman served as artistic liaison between Pinto and the Mason Gross dancers. He says this immersion gives student dancers the opportunity to “ work at an intensive level with professionals in the world. They see themselves as professionals in a very concrete way. ” Friedman says the department is developing a “Dance in Israel” course as well as an International Dance Studies certificate.
Sophomore Dance student Mimi Gabriel says interpreting the movement language of various Israeli choreographers throughout the year has broadened her understanding of the country ’ s dance scene. Gabriel says she hopes to study next year at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, a newly established studyabroad program involving the Mason Gross School and the Rothberg International School at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Gabriel says she has noticed that Israeli
dancers are “ very versatile and passionate a lot of the time. They have an ability to express passion through movement. Their bodies are so strong. It seems like they can do anything. I want to see what they ’ re doing. ”
Talia Beck, a freelance principal dancer with the Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollak Dance Company, led the collaboration with Mason Gross students.
“The students came so open to it, ” she says. “Usually at a school you have to deconstruct their habits and opinions, but it was very easy to release them and have them come into the piece . . . They go for it. ”
Gabriel says she is grateful to have experienced Beck’ s knowledge firsthand.
“To be able to see her dance a step is so incredible, ” Gabriel says. “You can ’t learn that on YouTube; you have to be in the rehearsal process. ”
But Beck emphasizes that these two weeks were not just about translating the finer points of Pinto and Pollak’ s aesthetic.
“I also want them to find humor and freedom in that, ” Beck says. “I want them to take away the playfulness and joy of moving. Freedom allows for new ideas to come. ”
Ritter has arranged for the students to participate in exchanges with Chinese and Turkish dancers and says she plans to continue to bring in international dance artists.
“When the students graduate, I want them to see that New York City is not the only option, ” she says. “I want them to have face-to-face exposure with international artists.
“I say, you need to be able to communicate globally as a dancer and a human being, ” Ritter continues. “If anything, that’ s really my goal. For dance to survive, there need to be synergies between different kinds of people and different kinds of dance. ” —LG
EYAL LANDESMAN
Top, Dance students Mimi Gabriel, at center, and Erin Dowd participate in a workshop with the Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollak Dance Company. Above, a member of the company in performance.
Mason Gross students will perform a collage of work by the Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollak Dance Company at the school’s annual DancePlus Spring concert, set for April 20-29 at the Victoria J. Mastrobuono Theater.
CHOIR DIRECTOR TEACHES CHILDREN TO RAISE THEIR VOICES
ove at first sight.
” That’ s how Mason Gross School Music professor and Rutgers Children ’ s Choir Artistic Director Rhonda Hackworth describes her first experience working with a children ’ s choir.
“It was a big group of kids from all sorts of backgrounds, ” Hackworth says of her time as a graduate assistant at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Hackworth, better
known as “Dr. H. ” to her students in the choir, recalls that there was so much going on in the rehearsal involving families, kids, undergraduate helpers, graduate assistants and the conductor, that she thought, “ ‘This is how it should be!’ ”
Hackworth’ s passion for working with children goes back to her days serving as both a church music director in Virginia and a professor at a local community college. She says spending time shuttling back and forth between producing children ’ s musicals at the church and teaching college students “hooked” her.
“I love teaching college where we talk about teaching children, ” Hackworth says. “But if I don ’t actually get to teach children it seems something is missing. I just love the exuberance of kids during their elementarythrough-early-adolescent years: they are delightful, pliable, eager and squirmy, and they really do their best. ”
Hackworth became artistic director of the Rutgers Children ’ s Choir in 2008. Since then, the group—a treble-voice choir dedicated to providing artistically excellent,
age-appropriate vocal training for thirdthrough eighth-grade children with unchanged voices—has expanded to include two additional divisions: Little Knights, for children in kindergarten through second grade, and the Rutgers Chamber Singers, an auditioned ensemble of advanced singers in grades five through eight. In October 2011, Hackworth hosted children ’ s choirs from around the state on campus at the inaugural Fall Children ’ s Choir Festival.
“I’d love to see the day when someone who started in the Little Knights continues all the way through the [Rutgers Children ’ s Choir], applies to Rutgers, ” she says, “ and becomes a freshman in my class!” —CK
“L
PHOTOS BY LARRY LEVANTI
RUTGERS CHILDREN’S CHOIR PROGRAMS
LITTLE KNIGHTS: Kindergarten-second grade, 5-5:35 p.m. Wednesdays. No audition required. CHORISTERS: third-fifth grade, 5:45-7:05 p.m. Wednesdays. An audition is required to evaluate placement according to age, musical skills and vocal development. CHORALE: fifth-eighth grade, 5:45-7:05 p.m. Wednesdays. An audition is required to evaluate placement according to age, musical skills and vocal development. CHAMBER SINGERS: fifth-eighth grade, 7:20-8 p.m. Wednesdays. An audition is required for membership in this ensemble. Chamber Singers is for children in Chorale who are ready for a more challenging music experience. Members must commit to sing in both Chorale and Chamber Singers.
Classes run throughout the school year on the Douglass Campus in New Brunswick. More information is available at 732-932-8618 or www.masongross.rutgers.edu/extension.
STUDENT PROFILE: Mika Godbole
Godbole admits that her choice to become a musician
“ was because of a boy. He was playing bass drum in a marching band. From then on I said, ‘I want to do that. ’ I wanted to be around him. ” The drummer boy is long gone. But nearly 20 years later, Godbole ’ s passion for percussion endures. Godbole, a Mason Gross graduate Music student, presented her recital, Steve Reich’ s minimalist Music for 18 Musicians, on March 5, 2012, at the 740-seat Nicholas Music Center. The 32-year-old timpanist marshaled the forces of four pianists, two clarinetists, one cellist, a violinist, an array of keyboard percussionists and a four-woman vocal ensemble. “With timpani [also known as the kettledrum], you ’ re always this low voice, ” Godbole explains. “I’ m very shy. When I play the timpani, I feel like I have a voice—a contributing voice. I finally felt I could speak. I wasn ’t saying anything that hadn ’t been said before, but it was something. ”
Godbole did not take a formal percussion lesson until she was 17. But what Godbole lacked in experience she made up for in grit. As Godbole tells it, at her college audition, she informed her future teacher: “This is what I could do in four months; imagine what I could do in four years. ” He took her on. “It was like learning to ride a unicycle, ” Godbole says. “I used to not sleep for days at a time. I didn ’t know the rudiments. I was so far behind [the others]” that Godbole says she was forced to “ count the lines ” as she scrambled to read music. “I worked very hard and finally—timpani: I realized I was good at one instrument. Then there was hope. ” Ultimately, the sound of the timpani inspired her to press on. “I liked being inside the sound, ” Godbole remembers. “There ’ s something so cool about being inside something—you ’ re creating something, part of a whole. I’ m glad I stuck with that feeling even when I stunk. I can ’t tell you how much I cried [when I first started]. Everyone has that in life, when you hit a wall and you don ’t know how to get to the other side. ” Eventually, she made it to the other side. After graduating from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Godbole earned a master ’ s of music at Rowan University in Glassboro, N.J.; she arrived at Mason Gross in 2007. Two years later, she received an invitation to join a former Mason Gross professor in a performance of Hector Berlioz ’ s Requiem alongside The Philadelphia Orchestra. “To get from the point of ‘I don ’t know what I’ m doing, ’ to this—I’ll never forget it, ” Godbole says. “Everything was worth it for that moment of playing with my teachers onstage. I can ’t believe it even happened. ” Who knows what made Godbole a musician— serendipity or sheer will. One thing is certain: This story begins with a boy, a girl and a bass drum; it ends with a self-professed “ scaredy cat” seizing on a sound and following it. “Persistence is the most important thing, ” Godbole says. “I may get up and say, ‘I feel terrible, ’ but you have to get up and hit your brain against the wall, and hopefully something happens. Sometimes that hope is enough. ” —LG
